Actual U.S. Unemployment: 15.8%
Washington Post
15 Maggio 2009
This morning's news that U.S. unemployment has hit 13.7 million, pushing the rate to 8.9 percent, tells only half the story of this recession.
The total number of Americans who are not working full-time but ought to be is actually about 22 million, or 15.8 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Who are those other 8.3 million Americans? Call them the unofficially unemployed.
As The Ticker points out each time the Bureau releases the monthly unemployment figure, it does not include many out-of-work Americans.
There are many reasons for this.
The bureau, which is under the Labor Department, cannot use unemployment compensation records to count the out-of-work, because they are not reliable or up-to-date enough. The bureau also cannot count every out-of-work person.
Instead, as The Ticker reported here in December: "In the case of the monthly jobs report, the Labor Department …
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